Saturday, November 26, 2011

Holiday Feasting Experiments and Giveaway Winner

The Thanksgiving feast keeps on giving as our family enjoys lots of savory leftovers. I'm giving thanks that I made all that food because it's a busy time at our bookshop and I need to focus on customer requests and special orders and the ever-ringing phone. Can't be cooking when I have to track down a replacement copy of someone's mom's favorite cookbook for Christmas or roam my shelves for the exact edition of Homer's Iliad for a special holiday gift.

One great success at the Thanksgiving table was a big antipasto platter that I made for us all to graze on while I was cooking up stuff Thursday morning. I usually have to swat away all the nibblers that plague me while I am trying to whisk gravy, orchestrate all the side dishes and come up with a good looking feast for our celebratory table, but with this luscious mound of salad greens, pickled bits, cheeses and meats set out on the table, I was able to keep humming along without being pestered and the turkey remained unmolested and fully skinned.

The other great addition to my holiday table was a batch of soft-on-the-inside, crusty-on-the-outside rolls. I used Carol Fenster's recipe for Dinner Yeast Rolls from her 1000 Gluten Free Recipes (NY: John Wiley and Sons, 2008). Though yeast rolls are a time-consuming and ingredient-rich baking project, it was well worth the effort. They filled up the house with a wonderful scent during their baking and were winners at the dinner table too. I will definitely be making them again, perhaps with some kosher salt or sesame. And definitely a double batch next time too!

And now to announce the winner of The Crispy Cook giveaway of a copy of Laura B. Russell's fantastic new book, The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen. The winner is commenter number 8, Moonsword. Congratulations Moonsword! This truly is a great book that we have dipped into quite a bit recently. Dan used it to cook up some radish cake recently from some grated daikon, which tasted great but smelled horrendous, so he will have to wait until warmer weather to make this again so that we can open the windows during cooking.

I'll have another giveaway from Red Pack Tomatoes to announce later this week, so stick around for that!

Cook the Books

A Foodie Book Club

Gluten Free Goddess

What I'm Reading for Cook the Books

The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard Morais

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This blog is an original work of creative expression by Rachel Jagareski. All photos, text, and original recipes herein are copyrighted by the author/artist Rachel Jagareski (c) 2007-2015. All rights are reserved by the author. Please contact me for permission to republish or broadcast any material beyond your own personal use. Thank you.